Favouring a stable government after the coming elections, President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday warned that a fractured government will be hostage to â€œwhimsical opportunistsâ€ and be â€œcatastrophicâ€ to India.

Asking the voters not to â€œlet India downâ€, he said 2014 must become a year of healing after the fractured and contentious politics of the last few years and whosoever wins must have an undiluted commitment to stability, honesty and development.

Addressing the nation on the eve of 65th Republic Day, the President said he was not a cynic because he knew that democracy has a marvellous ability to self-correct.

â€œIt is the physician that heals itself and 2014 must become a year of healing after the fractured and contentious politics of the last few years,â€ he said.

Mr. Mukherjee said the year 2014 was a â€œprecipice momentâ€ in Indiaâ€™s history and it should re-discover that sense of national purpose and patriotism which lifts it above and across the abyss and back on the road to prosperity. â€œ(The year) 1950 saw the birth of our Republic. I am sure that 2014 will be the year of resurgence.â€

He said the youth should be given jobs and they would raise villages and cities to 21st century standards.

â€œGive them a chance and you will marvel at the India they create. This chance will not come if India does not get a stable government.

â€œA fractured government, hostage to whimsical opportunists, is always an unhappy eventuality. In 2014, it could be catastrophic. Each one of us is a voter; each one of us has a deep responsibility; we cannot let India down. It is time for introspection and action,â€ he warned.

â€œEach one of us is a voter; each one of us has a deep responsibility; we cannot let India down. It is time for introspection and action,â€ the President said.

He said India was in a turbulent part of the world where factors of instability have grown in the recent past.

â€œCommunal forces and terrorists will still seek to destabilise the harmony of our people and the integrity of our state but they will never win.

â€œOur security and armed forces, backed by the steel of popular support, have proved that they can crush an enemy within; with as much felicity as they guard our frontiers. Mavericks who question the integrity of our armed services are irresponsible and should find no place in public life,â€ the President said.

He admitted that the promise of India, a history of ideas, philosophy, intellect, has sometimes been mislaid by misfortune and at other times by our own complacence and weakness.

â€œDestiny has given us another opportunity to recover what we have lost; we will have no one to blame but ourselves if we falter,â€ he said.

On democracy, Mr. Mukherjee said, â€œSome cynics may scoff at our commitment to democracy but our democracy has never been betrayed by the people; its fault lines, where they exist, are the handiwork of those who have made power a gateway to greed.

â€œWe do feel angry, and rightly so, when we see democratic institutions being weakened by complacency and incompetence. If we hear sometimes an anthem of despair from the street, it is because people feel that a sacred trust is being violated.â€

The President said India has grown into a beautiful, vibrant and sometimes noisy democracy which was not a gift but a fundamental right of every citizen.

â€œ...For those in power democracy is a sacred trust. Those who violate this trust commit sacrilege against the nation,â€ he said.

Speaking about the economic health of the country, the President said the slowdown of economy in the last two years can be some cause of concern but none for despair.

â€œThe green shoots of revival are already visible. The agricultural growth in the first half of this year has touched 3.6 per cent and rural economy is buoyant,â€ he said.

Mr. Mukherjee said a democratic nation is always involved in argument with itself. â€œThis is welcome, for we solve problems through discussion and consent, not force. But healthy differences of opinion must not lead to an unhealthy strife within our polity,â€ he said.

He said India must find its own solutions to its problems and be open to all knowledge. â€œTo do otherwise would be to condemn our nation to the misery of stagnant mire. But we should not indulge in the easy option of mindless imitation, for that can lead us to a garden of weeds.â€

Recalling Indiaâ€™s ancient institutions of excellence in education, Mr. Mukherjee said the quality of education has to be the countryâ€™s focus now.

â€œWe can be world leaders in education, if only we discover the will and leadership to take us to that pinnacle,â€ he said.

Calling for an educational revolution, he said â€œeducation is no longer just the privilege of the elite, but a universal right. It is the seed of a nationâ€™s destiny.â€

President Pranab Mukherjee Saturday said democracy was a "sacred trust" for people in power and those who violate it commit sacrilege against the nation.

In his address on the eve of Republic Day, the president said democracy "had become our most precious guide towards peace and regeneration from the swamp of poverty" created by centuries of colonial rule.

He said fraternity, dignity of individual and unity of the nation were ideals that had become the lodestar of modern Indian state.

"For us, the democracy is not a gift, but the fundamental right of every citizen; for those in power democracy is a sacred trust. Those who violate this trust commit sacrilege against the nation," the president said.

"Corruption is a cancer"

"Corruption is a cancer that erodes democracy, and weakens the foundations of our state. If Indians are enraged, it is because they are witnessing corruption and waste of national resources. If governments do not remove these flaws, voters will remove governments," Mukherjee said.

"Populist anarchy cannot substitute governance"

The president also said that rise of hypocrisy in public life was dangerous and noted that government was "not a charity shop".

In his address on the eve of Republic Day, the president said elections do not give any person license to flirt with illusions.

"Elections do not give any person the licence to flirt with illusions. Those who seek the trust of voters must promise only what is possible. Government is not a charity shop. Populist anarchy cannot be a substitute for governance. False promises lead to disillusionment, which gives birth to rage, and that rage has one legitimate target: those in power," the president said.

Analysts said that the president's remarks that government was not a charity shop was directed at tendency among political parties to promise freebies and electoral doles to win elections.

The Aam Aadmi Paty had made promises concerning free supply of water and reduction of power tariff - both considered economically unfeasible - in the national capital in the run-up to elections last month. Many other parties have made similar promises in the past and were apparently planning to do so in run-up to the Lok Sabha polls this year.

The analysts also said that the president's reference to "populist anarchy" was also apparently aimed at the AAP which staged a night-long demonstration, led by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his cabinet, in the capital earlier this week defying prohibitory orders on assembly of people.

The opposition parties had accused the AAP government of creating an "anarchic situation" in the capital. In response, Kejriwal had declared he was an "anarchist" and had no hesitation to promote "disorder" in pursuit of his political cause.

The president said that aspirational young Indians will not forgive a betrayal of their future and those in office must eliminate the trust deficit.

"This rage will abate only when governments deliver what they were elected to deliver: social and economic progress, not at a snail's pace, but with the speed of a racehorse. The aspirational young Indian will not forgive a betrayal of her future. Those in office must eliminate the trust deficit between them and the people. Those in politics should understand that every election comes with a warning sign: perform, or perish," the president said.

President warns against fractured mandate

"This year, we will witness the 16th general election to our Lok Sabha. A fractured government, hostage to whimsical opportunists, is always an unhappy eventuality. In 2014, it could be catastrophic. Each one of us is a voter; each one of us has a deep responsibility; we cannot let India down. It is time for introspection and action," the president said.

President praises the youth

He said the youth can transform villages and cities to 21st century standards. "Give them a chance and you will marvel at the India they can create. This chance will not come if India does not get a stable government," the president said.

NEW DELHI: Arvind Kejriwal may again have a face-off with Delhi Police in February. The police are saying that AAP's decision to hold a special session of Vidhan Sabha at Ramlila Maidan for passing the Jan Lokpal Bill may create law and order problems.

Sources said the department has written to the party on Saturday, requesting it not to hold a session outside Delhi Secretariat. The cops said there are arrangements and designated marshalls to manage MLAs and others at Vidhan Sabha, but it will be a problem to make the same arrangements at Ramlila Maidan.

Aam Aadmi Party has denied receiving any letter, but said that it will stand by its decision. The chief minister announced it at Chhatrasal Stadium on the Republic Day eve.

While formal orders for denying him permission have not been issued, it is believed that the lieutenant governor will need to mediate again.

Last two weeks have witnessed a major face-off between the government and Delhi Police on a series of issues. Police sources on Saturday confirmed that law minister Somnath Bharti and PWD minister Manish Sisodia have been named in the FIR lodged against Arvind Kejriwal, his ministers and supporters for holding protests at Rail Bhavan on January 20 and 21.

"In the FIR (number 23), dated January 20, the IPC sections applied against them are 145 (unlawful assembly), 147 (punishment for rioting), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 186 (obstructing public servant from performing duty), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated), 353 (assault on public servant), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt)," a source said.

There are three other FIRs lodged as well in this connection with two of them for the violence by the protestors and the fourth being the assault and manhandling of teachers protesting alongside, police said.

It will serve two purposes. One, the Ramlila Ground could be where the Assembly operates from and AAP could also meet another of its promises by making the Assembly (Vidhan Sabha) a shelter for the homeless, about which the media has highlighted the number of deaths of the homeless during the cold spell. Also, there would be good toilet facilities.

Dressed casually, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal hogged the limelight at a gathering held on the occasion of Republic Day in Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Pranab Mukherjeeâ€™s official residence.

Soon after Mukherjee greeted the guests and dignitaries, visitors realised Delhiâ€™s new chief minister was among them. Some foreign diplomats could be seen trying to get his attention.

Notwithstanding the Presidentâ€™s speech on Saturday, a crowd soon formed around Kejriwal, with people jostling to get closer and introduce themselves.

Some asked him questions about his sit-in dharna. He patiently explained the motive behind it and defended his law minister Somnath Bharti.

As one group of people left, another gathered. And even after most of the guests left, Kejriwal was busy talking to people.

Asked about the Presidentâ€™s Republic Day address in which Mukherjee had said populist anarchy cannot be a substitute for governanceâ€, Kejriwal replied, â€œLetâ€™s have a debate on the subject".

The Presidentâ€™s remark is being interpreted as an apparent criticism of the Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP's) style of functioning.

There were some people taking photographs of the chief minister on their mobile phones.

Among those clicking Kejriwal's snaps was Kazi Aasif-uddin, a Congress functionary from Madhya Pradesh.

He admitted he was an admirer of the Delhi chief minister.

Kejriwal was not the only AAP leader there.

Bharti, who has drawn flak for his midnight raid to expose an alleged drug and sex racket in south Delhi, walked in a little later and attracted crowds.

When something unusual comes to town, curiosity draws people to that sight.

There is no doubt that Kejriwal is unusual and a novel aberration.

The reference to 'populism' is not only for the AAP, but is also for the Congress and BJP since all parties play to the gallery and are responsible for the non delivery of promises, causing rage of the public!

Every political party is guilty of populism.

Kejriwal is but only the result of lesson learnt from years of populism that India has gone through and has realised the 'power' of the same to capture and consolidate office of governance.

ELDER STATESMAN
- The presidentâ€™s first Republic Day address to the nation

Swapan Dasgupta

Those with a taste for historical fiction and counter-factual history may well find The Windsor Faction by the British writer, D.J. Taylor, published last year, quite absorbing. Set in the England of the nine months or so of the â€œphoney warâ€ of 1939-40, it probes the fantasies and amateurish conspiracies of the small set â€” with a larger measure of public support â€” that sought to prevent a repeat of the Great War of 1914-18 by facilitating a negotiated settlement with Germany.

Although much of Taylorâ€™s brilliantly crafted exploration of the British upper-crust support for Hitler is based on actual events, there is a significant departure from the historical script. The Windsor Faction begins with the description of a quiet funeral in a village church in December 1936: the funeral of Wallis Simpson. â€œIt is neither disloyal, nor merely callous,â€ said an imaginary editorial in The Spectator, â€œto suggest that if Mrs Simpsonâ€™s unlooked-for passing has not saved a nation from disaster, then it hasâ€¦saved His Majesty from himself.â€

In Taylorâ€™s story, the king detects a small window of opportunity: his traditional live Christmas broadcast to the Empire. With the aid of a dandyish journalist, Beverly Nichols (who in real life wrote an astonishingly controversial repudiation of the Indian nation in Verdict on India), the king plots to deviate from the script that had been vetted by his Palace minders and Whitehall. As the live broadcast from Windsor proceeds, Edward Windsor slyly inserts a paragraph into his speech: â€œThis, we are told, is a war to defend the interests of those who cannot defend themselves. But might not those interests be better defended by warâ€™s cessation?â€ The monarch says that he canâ€™t answer these questions. â€œThey are for governments, for the democratically elected representativesâ€¦to consider. But I put it to you that they should be considered, that the duties which lie before us may not be as straightforward as they seem to beâ€¦â€

For history buffs, Taylor accurately anticipates the consequences had Edward VIII actually made such a Christmas broadcast. He crafts an imaginary Daily Telegraph editorial that confronts the issues with characteristic tact and circumspection. Did the king exceed his constitutional brief? No, because â€œthe Kingâ€™s Speech is one of the few occasions on which the Sovereign is permitted â€” in fact encouraged â€” to express a personal opinion.â€ But, should the king have said what he did? â€œThe gap between what a man may say in private and what may decently be uttered on a public platform is knownâ€¦In supposing such a gap not to exist, the King has not only â€” albeit inadvertently â€” offered comfort to our enemies.â€

The invocation of an imaginary royal indiscretion by a monarch who in real life put emotion above the call of duty may appear a self- indulgent diversion. But the controversies that arise as a result of a ceremonial head of state deviating from both homilies and anodyne comments are real. Indeed, in the context of President Pranab Mukherjeeâ€™s first Republic Day address to the nation, it assumes a contemporary relevance.

To begin with, there is the vexed question as to whether the Republic Day address â€” as opposed to the speech he delivers at the opening of Parliament â€” is the presidentâ€™s own or reflect the views of the government. The Constitution deems that the head of state is guided by the advice of his council of ministers. In practice, this does not imply that the president is entirely a rubber stamp, deprived entirely of his right of independent observation. By convention, a draft of the presidentâ€™s speech on a national day is sent to the cabinet secretary. Yet, there is no known case of a government modifying the draft. As with the British monarchâ€™s Christmas Day broadcast, the president speaks his mind with the necessary dose of circumspection and understatement. This is all the more relevant in the context of President Mukherjee. Along with Rajendra Prasad and R.Venkataraman, he is the only person who came to Rashtrapati Bhavan after having occupied the most important political posts. There have been other politicians who became president, but their experience of public life was nowhere as significant as that of the present incumbent. What President Mukherjee thinks bears the hallmark of both experience and erudition.

This Republic Day, some eyebrows were raised by two of the presidentâ€™s more political observations. First, he suggested that â€œelections do not give any person the licence to flirt with illusions. Those who seek the trust of voters must promise only what is possible. Government is not a charity shop. Populist governance cannot be a substitute for governance.â€ Quite predictably, and given the shenanigans of Arvind Kejriwal on the streets of Delhi just three days before, the warning against reckless populism was seen as an indictment of the Aam Aadmi Party. It was certainly viewed as such by the AAP leadership and by its supporters.

Secondly, the president spoke about the yearning of Young India for opportunities and a better life. However, he argued that â€œthis chance will not come if India does not get a stable governmentâ€¦A fractured government hostage to whimsical opportunists, is always an unhappy eventuality. In 2014, it could be catastrophic. Each one of us is a voter; each one of us has a deep responsibility.â€

This grave warning of the implications of a weak government was well-intentioned. Yet, coming as it did in the backdrop of opinion polls suggesting that the Narendra-Modi-led National Democratic Alliance had clearly outpaced its Congress opponents, there were whispers that the president was arguing that the duty of the citizen lay in bolstering the front-runner and giving it an unequivocal mandate. In another context, it may have been read as an encouragement to the Congress but with anti-incumbency sweeping the country, the presidentâ€™s message must have been music to the ears of the Modi camp.

Till a year ago, President Mukherjee was an over-active politician, well respected on all sides of the political divide. It is against his nature to fall back on meaningless platitudes and homilies. He wants to remain relevant, not perhaps in an intrusive way but as a wise elder statesman. His remarks were not calculated to offend but to counsel all those who have a stake in the future of India. Most important, the sentiments he expressed found a positive echo in much of India. At the same time, his observations were jarring to those who imagine that they have given direct democracy a new meaning and those who believe that the only meaningful objective of the coming election is to stop Modi at all cost.

National consensus can only be achieved in a united country. At Christmas, 1939, Britain was confronted by an existential dilemma: to fight or to maintain an Empire and a way of life. In 2014, India is troubled by indecision over whether to look back or move forward. The uncertainty imposes an additional obligation on the head of state to speak his mind, albeit in code.

The President has very candidly brought out the ills and evils of today's political environment.

However, the petty politicians and the political parties will chose to ignore the sagacity of his address, since they are what the President is attempting to emphasise - greedy tykes hungry for power and then misuse it for their person benefit, leaving the nation high and dry, morally and financially to be in the doldrums of progress, victims of the politicians gibberish, anodyne claptrap laced with immense populism to bring the country further down!

However, the petty politicians and the political parties will chose to ignore the sagacity of his address, since they are what the President is attempting to emphasise - greedy tykes hungry for power and then misuse it for their person benefit, leaving the nation high and dry, morally and financially to be in the doldrums of progress, victims of the politicians gibberish, anodyne claptrap laced with immense populism to bring the country further down!

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I think the solution for many of the ills in our country is to completely end inheritance. That will force all the ba$tards who are trying to rob the country to realize that no matter what they do, their kids will start at exactly the same place as the other kids. May be then they will think of doing something for everyone instead of trying to benefit one at the expense of everyone else.

New Delhi: Noting that the country's history and traditions have always celebrated the "argumentative" Indian rather than an "intolerant" Indian, President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday asked people to be "uncompromising" in rejecting intolerance.

Inaugurating the World Book Fair here today, the President also stressed for doing everything possible for preserving and nurturing the ideals of a secular, multi-lingual and democratic India.

Without any reference to the recent controversy over withdrawal of a book by Penguin, the President said the freedom of speech guaranteed by the Constitution must be preserved.

"We must be uncompromising in rejecting intolerance, prejudice and hatred. Book fairs such as this should remind us that our history and traditions have always celebrated the 'argumentative' Indian and not the 'intolerant' Indian.â€

"Multiple views, thoughts and philosophies have competed with each other peacefully for centuries in our country and freedom of speech is one of the most important fundamental rights guaranteed by our Constitution," he said.

The comments of the President assume significance in the wake of Penguin making an out of court settlement for withdrawing and pulping of all copies of the book written by US author Wendy Doniger -- 'Hindus and Alternative History'.

The President said such international book fairs were the best manifestations of India's liberal, democratic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and secular society where competing ideas and ideologies have equal space.

Talking about the Book Fair, the President expressed happiness about this year's theme 'Kathasagar: Celebrating Children's Literature' and said children are the best readers of literature because they do not have "patience for pretence".

Observing that no human society can develop in all its dimensions if it does not produce meaningful literature for children and young reader, the President called upon authors, publishers and government to do their utmost to promote children's literature.

With Poland being the guest country at the fair, Mukherjee hoped that their participation would give a boost for increased literary exchanges between the two countries.

He also lauded National Book Trust's initiative to publish in English in association with a Polish institute an illustrated book for children titled 'Little Chopin' on the childhood of legendary Polish music composer Fredric Chopin.

Disagreeing with the view that books may take a backseat with the advent of Internet and other communication facilities, he said, "No technological upgradation can replace the habit" of reading books.

"For a developing country like India, which has diverse needs and aspirations, printed books and digital media must be complementary and not rival to each other," he said.

The challenge, he said, is to convert knowledge into a democratic force and take it into every corner of the country.

The President also said that as there is a great hunger for knowledge in the country, the motto should be "all for knowledge and knowledge for all".

yaa we know how last 10yrs how India is viewed by others!
Even small countries are mocking at us.

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This shows that even after having nuclear weapons and strong army , we still give respect to everyone and not bully other nations. With power comes responsibility and Indian nation is showing that responsibility . Please think a bit more deeper.